


Unspoken

by Cobrilee



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [16]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: BOM!Keith, Canon compliant future-ish fic, I mostly just wrote this to make people clutch their hearts, M/M, Mild Angst, and say 'ow'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 18:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cobrilee/pseuds/Cobrilee
Summary: There are words they keep trying to say, but they never come at the right time. Keith thinks it’s better if they just don’t say them at all.





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [mad-madam-m](https://mad-madam-m.tumblr.com/) for the prompt (from a prompt list, "Things you didn't say at all") and the encouragement, and talking me off that ledge known as writer’s block.

It haunts him, sometimes. The look on Shiro’s face when Matt pulled him away, told him it was time to go. The way his lips had parted just before, like he was going to say something, something  _important_. 

Keith desperately wanted to know what those words would have been. What Shiro needed him to know right before he left, the thing that mattered so much that he’d actually started to pull away from Matt’s grip before the look of anticipation, of  _need_ , faded into something resigned, wistful. His eyes had softened, the soothing gray drinking in every second they could of Keith’s face, and then they’d disappeared into the little train car that would take them across the tarmac to the launch pad. 

He’d  _wanted_  to know, for so long. Now he’s afraid of those unspoken words. Afraid that whatever Shiro had planned to tell him would have brought him soaring to the heavens, only to crash further into hell when the news of the Kerberos mission broke. Afraid that they were the same ones Keith had been too terrified to put to tongue. 

_I love you._

_Wait for me._

Now there’s nothing left to wait for. Shiro will never come home. 

Keith keeps waiting anyway.

—–

He hasn’t thought of those almost-words in a long time. Months, maybe? A year? But then Shiro  _looks_  at him as Kolivan turns to leave, and Keith turns to follow him on instinct, when the look catches up to him and makes him stop short. He remembers it. It’s the same one Shiro gave him that last day.

So he turns back, hesitates. “Shiro?” His voice is soft, questioning. He refuses to allow it to be hopeful.

“Are you coming back to us?”

He wants to say  _yes_. He wants to say  _of course_. He doesn’t. 

He stares at Shiro instead, eyes wide, and sad, and heavy. “I don’t know.” He plans to, someday. If he doesn’t die first. If the Galra don’t capture him. If, if, if.

“Keith.” He blinks, trying to break the captive spell Shiro’s intense gaze has placed on him. “I love you.”

He had been right. The words that never came hurt worse out loud than they did in his imagination.

“Keith.” Kolivan’s voice is gruff, and it jars him out of the moment, the one where he gets to have hope. “We must go. The Blades cannot be kept waiting.”

He lets his gaze flicker back to Shiro, who’s broken-hearted but still standing tall, proud, stalwart. 

_I love you, too. I always have. I will for forever._

He doesn’t say anything as he turns to follow Kolivan. Shiro had his destiny, back then. Keith has his own now. 

Maybe one day he’ll get to say it back. But for now, it will hurt them both a little less if the words remain unspoken.


End file.
